Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Well designed business cards are necessary to attract potential clients’ attention. Shi Studio recently passed out these cards at a Toronto art show. According to their website, “Shi means poems in Chinese”.

That is absolutely correct.

Unfortunately, that is not what is printed on their cards.

The character on the card is 禅 (or 禪), which means “meditation”, and “shi” (or "poem") should be 詩 (or 诗).

The top character 姉 is a Japanese specific character for "elder sister". Its equivalent in Chinese are 姊 and 姐.

The bottom character 妹 means "younger sister". If the order of two horizontal stokes in 未 partical are reversed and changed the character to 妺, it would mean "wife of the last ruler of the Xia dynasty".

Both characters are somewhat recognizable, but I am astonished by the mangled left partial 女.

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Wednesday, November 16, 2005

If you ever needed a reason to prevent yourself from tattooing your own name onto your leg in a language you don't understand nor speak, i.e. Chinese, this would be a good one.

Peter wanted his name in Chinese to be tattooed on his leg. Too bad, Peter was too trusting or naïve, and did not get a second opinion on the translation. He has put all his trust in the hands of his tattooist and tattooist’s unconfirmed flash book.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

“Sept. 24, 2003: Shawn Marion will be sporting a new look beyond the added pounds he piled on in the weight room this summer. A tattoo down his right leg in Chinese lettering which translates to ‘The Matrix’ was added to his body art early in the off-season.”

The three “Chinese lettering” Mr. Marion sporting does not really translate as “The Matrix” in Chinese.

Saturday, November 5, 2005

“It is a picture of a tattoo taken by some racist, who apparently just downloaded an ‘Asian’ font from the Internet, wrote ‘SAY NO TO NIGGERS’ with that font and let somebody to tattoo it in his back. Of course, since languages don't work that way - which apparently is too much to comprehend for our little white supremacist here - the message is completely incomprehensible, as it actually is just finish with a strange font.”

The tattoo is complete gibberish.

Update: The tattoo shown here is suppose to be Finnish of “SANO EI LAKUPEKOILLE”, which is the English equivalent for “say no to niggers”. The owner of the tattoo used an “Asian” font to mimic the alphabets. What the fool did not realize is that the Chinese do not use alphabets. Way to show your racial superiority by using another culture's language.